Owner: Irreligio URL:http://irreligio.wordpress.com Join Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:25:23 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Tales of irreligion
Musings on religion, philosophy, and science. Site statistics:Click here
Philosophical Presuppositions Defeated? 2007-02-27 00:46:53 Google Books, I discovered a rather amusing little essay in a book titled “Darwinism Defeated?“. Now, the title alone provokes laughter from me (Is it defeated? We aren’t sure, so we’ll equivocate with our title), but I kept reading.
I came across the crux of the essay in one of the first paragraphs, which I’ll reproduce here:
My writings, and those of my colleagues in the intelligent design movement, assume that the truth or falsity of a scientific thesis should be determined by scientific evidence, rather than decided by philosophical presupposition. We are opposed by persons who endorse methodological naturalism, a doctrine that insists that science must explain biological creation only by natural processes, meaning unintelligent processes.
Now what’s wrong with this passage? It could be that the author classifies natural processes as philosophical presupposition but not intelligent design. It could also be the assertion that naturalism is a R Read more:Philosophical
Structured Procrastination 2007-02-26 03:28:59 reddit
This site details how to use procrastination to your benefit! After reading it, I realized that I actually do this all the time. For example, when I have a math exam coming up in 2 or 3 weeks, I feel like I have to study for it. But when it gets to 1 or 2 days before the exam, I tend to slack off and do other things.
Case in point: I have an analysis exam tomorrow, and here I am surfing reddit and writing on wordpress. Ahem.
I think I’ll start doing this more consciously from now on.
Read more:Structured
, Procrastination
Regurgitate, ye Atheist Talking Point! 2007-02-20 05:23:10 Yiddish Phrase: #!@$:
Some theists have this nasty habit of thinking they’re beyond criticism.
Here’s my general rule of thumb: if what you claim is utterly inane, I’m going to point that out. If you say little white unicorns come into your house at night and sexually assault your ear, I’ll call your idea crazy. If you say that some sky god has granted you immortality via a sacrificed Jewish man that lived 2000 years ago, I’ll call your idea crazy.
In any other mode of discourse, irrational and stupid ideas are treated with contempt. And yet when we get to religion, all of a sudden we throw all of that out the window.
No atheist I know avows the oppression of religion, and neither do I. I believe in free speech, yours as well as mine. It isn’t your right to be immune to criticism. So deal with it.
Kind of a trite thing for an atheist to say, I’ll admit. Meh. Sometimes things are trite because people have to repeat them so freaking often.
Read more:Atheist
, Talking
You’ve Probably Seen This.. Here’s Who Made It! 2007-02-19 16:51:06 Scobleizer
You’ve probably seen this Web 2.0 video. If you haven’t, well.. you’re just so Web 1.0, aren’t you?
It was made by a cultural anthropologist at Kansas State. Here’s a pretty interesting interview with the guy.
Cheers.
Read more:Probably
Neural Computing is Awesome! 2007-02-19 02:22:41 Check this out..
It’s a web site developed by physics professors and students at Syracuse University. It talks about the basics of neural networks and computing. There are also some other interesting things up there, including discussions of the biology of the brain and artificial intelligence.
If you’re interested in the mathematical aspects of neural computing, I suggest you check out Wikipedia (which is surprisingly one of the best mathematics compendiums out there). Check out Kolmogorov complexity in particular, as well as some of the terms mentioned in the Syracuse site (Hopfield networks, perceptrons, backpropagation, etc.)
Here’s another site I found which details the programming side of things, as well.
Read more:Computing
Study Shows Americans More Adept at Science, Increasingly Interested in Pseudoscience 2007-02-18 05:38:23 Yahoo:
People in the U.S. know more about basic science today than they did two decades ago, good news that researchers say is tempered by an unsettling growth in the belief in pseudoscience such as astrology and visits by extraterrestrial aliens.
I’m supposed to say I’m not surprised, right? That I figured the average Joe doesn’t really understand science. That the United States is slowly losing its intellectual prowess.
Eh, call me an optimist.
To me this seems more like a fluctuation than anything. This is a culture being reintroduced to things it’s seen before on an entirely new medium. And they’re excited about that. Horoscopes through the newspaper are one thing. But horoscopes over the internet are quite another. I get that.
It’s more than a superficial difference, too. The audiences and the writers of such things have changed dramatically. It’s analogous to the way blogs seem to be reinventing journalism. Blogs haven’t really re Read more:Science
, Study
, Americans
Sabbatical 2007-03-09 04:17:05 I’m going to be taking a sabbatical from this blog for about a week or two. I have exams and projects all throughout this week and next.
I’ve also started a new blog, which is going to be sort of a compilation of old notes from some of my math classes. That’ll be at http://htam.wordpress.com/. Some of the stuff is related to what I’m studying for. It’s kind of a good study tool, now that I think about it.
Cheers.
Read more:Sabbatical
On Causes 2007-03-28 11:31:26 Yesterday afternoon, while on my way to my 2 o’clock history seminar, I passed through the student union so I could peruse the bookstore. I’m taking the mathematics graduate record exam (GRE) in a few months, and so I thought I’d catch up on some stuff.
I left the union after an hour or so to get to class, and outside, as usual, were student advocacy groups trying to seduce starry-eyed undergrads into joining their various causes. Most students ignore these people as a rule (to which they’ve adopted a more ignominious strategy in which they stand directly in the middle of the walkway and shove pamphlets into students’ hands, forcing us to actively, rather than passively, deny their offerings), and so did I.
“Support clean energy!” they shouted as I walked past. And I thought, “Who doesn’t support clean energy?”
And I wondered.
Some people are a part of a cause because they need to be a part of a cause and because they think
How to Deliver American News 2007-04-03 01:05:30
For the anchor
1.) As you end a news segment, always tap your papers into alignment. Staples are prohibited. (If they gleam in the bright studio lights, the audience may have seizures. You’re liable for that.)
2.) Always insinuate somehow that the latest “serious news” will bring the downfall of Western civilization. Eastern civilization is less important, so it doesn’t matter if it falls.
3.) Repeat what you’ve just said in about twenty different ways, once every five minutes.
4.) In a “news debate”, always begin confrontational retorts with the preposition, “but”, and then phrase them as questions. That way you appear civil without directly acknowledging the other person is a complete idiot. E.g., “But isn’t the sky blue?”
5.) Position is important. If your guest is the Chairman of the Ass-Rooster Board of Directors Incorporated, Polka division, you’ve got an authoritative source. Whatever they say is aut Read more:American
In Mother Russia, Free Speech has You 2007-04-22 22:55:27 This article in the New York Times is utterly frightening.
Apparently, the Kremlin is forcing government-owned radio stations to air a minimum of 50% favorable news. Not only that, but it’s prohibited the mentioning of its political enemies. And if that weren’t enough (though this last one doesn’t nearly concern me as much as the first two), it’s mandating that the U.S. be portrayed as Russia
’s enemy.
Don’t take my word for it. Go read the article!
Read more:Speech
, Free Speech
How Far Have You Traveled? 2007-05-03 05:30:57 The Earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours. Which means in one day, you travel roughly the circumference of our planet (unless you live closer to the poles than to the equator, which I don’t).
Find your latitude position (you can use the GeoCoder to find it). This is the angle made from the equatorial plane to your current location (the equator has a latitude of 0 degrees, the north pole has a latitude of 90 degrees, etc.). Using simple geometry, you can find how far away from the Earth’s axis you are. This is important, because the farther away from the Earth’s axis you are, the bigger the circle you make as the Earth rotates, and the farther you’ve traveled. In my case, it’s about 38 degrees.
Subtract this value from 90. In my case, it’s 90-38=52.
Using a calculator, take the sine of this value. In my case, it’s about 0.78801. (Make sure your calculator is in degree mode, not radian mode).
Multiply this value by the Earth’s radi
Face It, You Suck at Formal Writing 2007-05-07 23:55:05 Are you a student? Do you consistently get Cs on writing assignments? Do you whine and complain that your professor isn’t grading you fairly? Odds are that you suck at formal writing.
Why do you suck so much? Let’s forget for a second that you don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s”, or that you don’t proofread. There are two main reasons why you suck at formal writing.
First, wordiness. Your writing is too freaking wordy. You write things in the most roundabout way possible. You enjoy long elaborate sentences that border on run-on. You’re a comma-happy, adverb-abusing, preposition whore. And you say, “Oh, it makes it sound more conversational.” No, it doesn’t.
Next, ambiguity. Whether it’s BSing to meet a page quota, or just sloppy, capricious writing, ambiguity is the layman’s attempt to appear intellectual, to fool the grader into mistaking BS for content. Or it’s just plain la
Cognitive Biases 2007-05-29 05:46:22 Ever been in an argument with someone who constantly questions your motives and assumptions?
Here’s why.
In my own experience, people seem rely heavily on non-arguments and bad logic, especially when it comes to politics and religion. I even catch myself doing it sometimes. A good rule of thumb is to play your own devil’s advocate, I’ve found, and just assume you’re going to try to make these arguments at some point.
Cheers
Read more:Cognitive
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